AN: Another twofer for you all since I keep forgetting that I have people who actually like reading my works _ Hope you all enjoy and as always, comments and constructive feedback are always welcome!

A glaringly ignorant part of me forgot one simple fact: my grounds were now open to my Clan. A fact I realized as I came in for a landing in my back yard only to find that the newly cleared space had been renovated with a massive above-ground swimming pool and hot tub, along with a wrap-around wooden deck. Off to the left side was a huge fire pit, and to the right was a full barbeque setup that had the heavenly smell of smoked meat filling the air.

Esme stood at the bottom of the wooden steps leading up onto the deck, looking adorable in a pair of blue jean overalls with a carpenter's belt around her waist. She looked so proud of her accomplishment for all of a split second before she was rushing forward to catch me as I crumpled to my knees. The agony of what I'd done, breaking that bond that wasn't supposed to actually be a bond more than it was a wish. It was too much. My soul was crying out, my magick had fled from me, hiding away from within my core as it, too, mourned.

"My darling child," Esme crooned, her voice breaking the first of many sobs from my throat as I cried out my pain to the heavens. "What happened, Angela? My sweet child, please, tell me who hurt you so."

"She did it to her damn self!" another voice intruded. I loosely identified it as Leah, but none of it mattered. Nothing mattered but the fact that not even the numerous awakening connections in my soul would be enough to piece together my shattered heart.

"Watch your tone," Esme hissed at her daughter-in-law.

"It's true, Esme," came another vaguely familiar voice half-remembered feelings of soft lips and shared intimacy fluttering up before being crushed once again beneath a wave of agony. "Bella figured out Angela's not human, and so witchy-Casanova leads red-riding-hood off into the woods and keeps us all from being able to find them."

Another new voice joined the conversation, though their words were beginning to lose coherency in my mind. "The whole damn Pack felt her pain and we all watched as she tore apart whatever existed of her connection to Bella. She couldn't deal with the fact that Bella's currently in love with Edward so Angela chose instead to break both of their hearts before she let Bella get a word in edgewise."

My head snapped up, teeth gnashing as I felt a screech of contempt leave my lips. Sam stood there with a much taller Emily at her side, Leah and Rosalie to their right. How dare they! How dare they speak of things they know nothing of! They knew nothing of this pain, I have ensured that for them! I gave them absolution and they offer me betrayal in return! This is how they repay me, the last Lockwell?!

I felt Esme being snatched out of my arms just as I felt that now-familiar maelstrom rise up within me, only now it was calling vengeance for blood betrayed. I became one with the storm willingly, giving myself over to the power exploding through every part of my body. I would silence dissidence with death if that was required, but no one would again betray my heart.

Vines and roots began to lash at my arms and legs, attempting to contain me but I was unleashed. A simple flex is my magick had each piece of nature crumbling away into dust around me, a cruel laugh rumbling up from my chest as I turned on the traitor Dryad. "You know your pathetic power is no match for mine, pet. How dare you raise your magick against one such as I!"

I was beginning the construction of a new weave that burned itself into my conscious mind, a full annihilation spell, when I felt my body being thrown through the air as the impact of what felt like a boulder sent me tumbling uncontrollably several dozen feet away until I landed with an undignified grunt of pain as my body rebelled against the unexpected assault.

I grumbled as I quickly began healing my injuries while locating my new opponent. There before me stood three massive wolves, one pitch black with eyes like the devil herself, the one to her left a gray and black color with a much smaller statue, and the third a silver-gray wolf with familiar dark eyes that promised retribution while asking forgiveness. They were of my Clan yet they sought to bring me low, why?!

Before I could retaliate, I felt my arms and legs being gripped by one of the strongest holds I've ever felt before. "Sorry, little sis, but this is for your own good." I vaguely recognized the voice of Emmett Cullen before my entire body was lifted into the air.

"Into the river!" were the last words I heard from Armando's raspy lips before I was suddenly weightless, twirling like a spinning top whirling without direction. I was moving swiftly, I knew as much from the air rushing through my ears, but the cold splash of icy water was far too surprising even for my mind to comprehend, considering the river was at least five miles away from my sanctuary.

I felt the cold wash over and through me, the grip of the water stronger than its current would ever be as I tasted foreign nature magick as it filled my lungs and stole the very life from my body. So this was to be my end, a shattered heart screaming in pain as a body screamed for air, all the while those who claimed to 'love' me stood by the riverbank and observed my end. Well if I was going down, then I would not go alone! At the very least, the last of the Dryads would fall with the last of the Lilitu!

I gripped his life essence and strangled it with my own. My consciousness was slipping, but I had enough strength in me to end this fool before their betrayal took my final breath!

"Please, no!"

The voice of a mother begging mercy for her new love had me hesitating, loosening my grip on the Dryad long enough for him to gain one life sustaining breath more than myself. And then I knew only darkness as water filled my body and cleansed my soul while my heart scattered in fragments amidst those absolving waters.

I drifted in a sea of white, warmth and cold warring in my chest as I stared miles into nothingness. It had been this way for what seemed like ages, a slowly swirling cloud of white emptiness where my emotions would spike from one extreme to nonexistence in a flash. I had never known such chaos, not even while dwelling in Alice Cullen's mind.

As if summoned by the thought, there suddenly appeared the tiniest pixiepire, but something seemed off about her. It wasn't until I got a good look into her eyes that I realized they were a dark brown instead of gold, her hair hanging loose and dark around her shoulders.

"Ah," she chimed in that delicate voice of hers, "I was wondering how this would work. You really are a unique creature, even amongst our ancestors."

"Alice?" I questioned, feeling confusion rise up quick and sharp in my chest. "What's happening? Why are you here?"

She just smiled in my direction while shrugging sharp shoulders. "I don't think I'm really here, only a figment you created out of one of the souls you hold dear to your heart."

I felt my brows furrow, though I wasn't even sure I had a physical form to process the action. "Then who are you really?"

A mysterious smile softened Alice's normally mischievous feature. "I am you, but I am not."

I sighed and turned back to the infinite distance, because why wouldn't my own self give me riddles. "Look, Yoda, I don't have time for false talk and half-answers. I've gotten enough of that from nearly every mentor in my life. So either speak clearly or leave me to my limbo."

"What about this form witchy-bitch?" came Rosalie's voice, my gaze snapping back to find a sapphire-eyed blonde beauty dressed in something I expected my grandmother would have worn back in her day.

"Okay, what the actual hell is going on?" I murmured, my mind sluggish as it tried to comprehend the world around me.

"Well," not-Rosalie went on, casually observing her perfectly manicured nails, "you're technically dead. This 'limbo' is a space you created within your own soul while your loved ones try to piece your heart and mind back together."

I blinked several times at the raw, unfiltered admission. "Wait, I'm dead? Like, dead-dead? What happ-" then every detail returned to me in a blinding flash of disjointed thoughts and feelings, my hand reaching for my chest but feeling nothing but numbness.

"Yes, had it not been for the swift actions of your dear Dryad, you would be gone for good." I blinked, turning once again to find my Ma'atem, Esme, sitting at my side. "You nearly killed him, you know? In doing so, you would have taken three lives that day. Four, if you count your own."

"My own? Why would my death count?" I felt like I knew the answers but they were just out of reach, as if I were slowly putting together a puzzle the more I spoke with this entity.

Esme nodded, this sad look on her beautiful face as tears began to pour down her cheeks. "You tried to kill your heart, and in doing so you nearly became one of the most feared and powerful creatures this world has ever seen: a Wight."

I could feel whatever facsimile of a body I now wore try to furrow its brows in confusion. "What is a Wight? How come they've never come up in my studies?"

"To answer your first question, jailbait," I sighed, not even bothering to look at the entity now wearing Leah's face, "a Wight is what becomes of a Witch should her connection to nature be severed. This can occur in two ways; either the Witch's magickal core is wounded and forcefully cut off from the natural energies it channels, or the Witch shuts herself off from nature voluntarily."

"Now," came Sam's voice, drawing my unwilling gaze her way, "when this happens to a normal Witch they become wrathful and wraith-like in appearance, seeking out energy in any form to supplement the missing life-force. They will become like zombies, feeding on the land and leaving only death in their wake."

"But for a Lilitu," I gasped at the sudden appearance of the image and voice of my grandmother, "if we turn Wight, we still have our untapped cores to call upon. We become wrath incarnate and will use up every last bit of our power to seek vengeance on any we even suspect of being a threat. Entire cities have been leveled by Lilitu Wights, civilizations wiped from history because we can't bear to lose our hearts."

"You tried to kill us," I wasn't even shocked to find myself staring into my own eyes, that convection of maelstrom energy swirling around my pupils like a storm, my hair as white as my new namesake. "You tried to cut out our heart and it nearly destroyed everything 'Lani built for us. Why?! Why weren't we enough!"

And suddenly I was being buffeted by dozens of voices, all asking the same question again and again until I couldn't take it anymore. It was never that they weren't enough! I love them all, my growing Clan, but how could I explain to them that without Bella, love could not live in my heart? She was my light and my life, my reason for living...wasn't she? I opened my mouth as the pain crested, took a deep breath...

...and screamed, my throat raw and aching but I didn't care because I couldn't stand the pain. Not mine, not this time. I couldn't stand the hearts that reached for me, begging me to come back to them, begging whatever forgiveness for whatever imagined wrongs they might have done to make me run so far from them. It hurt in a cathartic way that left me crying out the words, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" again and again on repeat until several hands, some hot, some ice cold, forced me to lie back down.

"Shh," crooned the familiar, loving tone of Esme's voice from my side. "You're okay, we're all okay. You need to calm yourself and listen."

I tried to take a deep breath around my agonizing sobs, but no air seemed capable of reaching my lungs. In fact, as I slowly began to calm my crying, I realized I couldn't feel my lungs or my breath at all. The longer I sat there, listening to my body, the more I realized that I couldn't detect any of my previous bodily functions. I brought my fingers to my wrist, then to my throat, but just as I suspected, there was nothing. Was I truly dead? How could I be moving around if I were...well, the same question could be asked of the vampires, but Witches can't be turned.

I was just starting to panic when the smell of lavender and roses invaded my senses, calming me as I began to focus my vision. "Do not worry, Madam Lockwell," rasped the soothing voice of Armando as he took up a seat beside Esme. "You are not dead, nor are you in a vampire-like state. I had to place your body into a form of suspended animation unique to my kind. It shuts off all but the most basic functions necessary to keep the body alive, freezing all excess brain activity and binding your soul to your body. Unfortunately, this ceased the false autonomic functions your kind have developed over the centuries to blend in with humans. We barely managed to get you into that river in time before your soul was lost to us forever."

I could feel my tears begin anew as I was faced with my own inhumanity. I would have destroyed them all in some warped sense of betrayal, had Emmett not showed up. His was the only soul not bound to mine, so he would have been the only one capable of sneaking up on me. "I'm so sor-"

"We know," Leah whispered as she entered the room. It was only then that I realized I wasn't at home, which meant I must be at the Cullen's home. "You've been shouting it in all of our heads since you came to."

She took up a seat across from Esme and it was only then that I realized how many chairs there were scattered around the room. I was in what appeared for all intents and purposes to be a hospital room, though the homey touches were obvious in the family pictures and expensive carpeting, the clock above the door reading 10:11 AM. "How long was I out for this time?"

Leah cringed and I just knew I wasn't going to like what she had to say. "It would have been three weeks tomorrow."

I felt a phantom thud of my nonexistent heart as my eyes flew wide. "What happened to Bella? What about school? What have you told everyone?" I was gearing up for a meltdown of epic proportions when another soothing wave from Armando hit me like a truck.

"In order," Armando answered, "Bella was led back to the school by Edward before being taken home soon after your departure. She wanted to follow you but he doesn't know where your property is and would have been unable to gain access. You've been reported as being in a coma brought on by exposure to a deadly virus that Emmett accidentally brought back when he returned from Alaska to take his finals. He, naturally, was miraculously immune, but with a little persuasion on our parts, we convinced your blood parents to leave you in the care of Dr. Cullen and to not ask any further questions."

I knew by 'persuade' they either meant threatened or paid off, and considering some of the vehicles I'd seen them drive, the Cullen family was probably more loaded than even I was. "So that's my parents off my back. But what do I do about my finals? I do not want to repeat 11th grade."

"Of course, the pretty little nerd is worried about her schooling." I glared as Dog-Trainer Barbie made her way into the room, taking up a seat beside her mate.

I rolled my eyes before glaring at the gorgeous cunt. "Firstly, thanks again for the compliment, I might start thinking you care. Secondly, you all know there is only one reason I'm still putting up with these humans."

A growl from the doorway drew my attention to Sam who was standing sentinel by the open door. "Yes, we all felt exactly why 'school' is important to you. And how it almost killed you!"

I flinched at the virulent anger I not only heard but felt from the Alpha, echoed in the connections with the others. I sighed and shifted back against the headboard as I addressed the room. "It's actually much worse than that." Then I went on to explain to everyone about the strange limbo and the entity and what it told me about Wights.

At the mention of the ghoul-like creatures, Armando visibly paled. "There haven't been reports of a Wight in many centuries. And the last recorded Lilitu Wight was over three thousand years ago. That Wight supposedly leveled an entire country, and it was only after she exhausted her core were the remaining Witches able to put her down. I thought those were just myths spread by the International Coven of Witches and the Volturi to excuse the slaughter of the Lilitu Witches."

"Well your new look makes sense now," Leah murmured, and I didn't even bother asking for a mirror. I could see myself in their thoughts. My black hair was streaked through with pale white stands, but it was my eyes that were the most terrifying. My right eye seemed caught in a perpetual state of shifting through maelstrom purple, while the other was almost pure white with a black line encircling the ghostly iris, the pupil so small as to appear as a dot. In a sense, I was at once both terrifying and magnificent, at least according to the four lovely ladies I was most deeply bonded to.

"Well," Armando went on, either ignoring the tension in the room or simply dismissing it as a fact of life, "we wanted to give you a choice, when you came out of your 'coma'."

Esme took over here, taking my hand in hers in a comforting gesture. "We know how much you want to be at school so you can spend time with Bella. But after everything that has happened, the lies we've had to spin to the rest of the town...well..."

"We think it would best best if you 'died'," Carlisle finished for his wife, appearing behind his mates, a supporting hand on each of their shoulders. "Bella has been over here nearly every day asking to see you, and Edward has grown more and more unstable the more adamant she becomes. He's starting to realize she's not as docile as she once was. He blames it on the influence of the boy, Jacob, whom I'm told will shift soon. But the majority of his blame goes to you. He's saying you put all kinds of ideas in her head and confused her."

My heart gave another one of those phantom thuds, the painful knife of hope sinking deep into the useless organ once more. "She's really been asking after me that much?"

A hand to the back of my head had me turning a static glare on Leah who yelped as my magick retaliated without my consent. "Fuck that hurt, you little twat!"

Hissing out a frustrated breath, I quickly snatched her hand up and cradled the severely singed flesh. It wasn't healing like a normal wound, so I had to forcibly pull my magick out of the wound before healing it myself. "Maybe for the time being you should vent your irritation in a way that won't have my magick lashing out without my consent. I'm having a lot of trouble keeping myself together, both mentally and metaphysically speaking."

I let go of her hand, letting my gaze fall to my lap, sighing heavily. "I don't breathe through my lungs so I'm guessing some kind of porous oxygen propagation system," I paused to glance at Carlisle and Armando who nodded their confirmation. "I don't have a heartbeat so I'm assuming my kind have a selectively-porous continuous circulatory system similar to that of vampires." Again, I received nods, this time with raised brows of surprise. "My magick is more powerful than any other's and if I'm not careful, I could become one of the most destructive forces on the planet." I glanced up with empty, deadened eyes, finding Rosalie's worried gaze. "Perhaps you were right. I should be put down."

A sharp slap to my right cheek from my left was quickly followed by my body being lifted off the mattress by my throat, the crushing weight bearing down on my larynx nothing compared to the teary-eyed fury of my Ma'atem snarling at me. "Do you know the kind of hell you put us through these last three weeks?! We couldn't tell if you were alive or dead for the first day! Even when we figured out how your physiology works, half the time none of us could feel our connection to you! It was like feeling you die over and over again! I lost a son once in my human life and it sent me off a cliff! I lost my daughter twenty-seven times and you have the audacity to say something so heartless?!"

All I could do was stare into Esme's watery black eyes, the pain etched into every perfect inch of her face a stark reminder that I no longer lived my life for my own, but for every heart and soul that I touched. I had been selfish in my pain, in my perceived loss of the one girl I loved above all else.

But that wasn't quite true, either, was it? Oh, I was still absolutely head-over-heels in love with Bella Swan, but I had come to love others just as equally, if not differently. I had my Ma'atem, my mother whose tears would never fall yet still she cried for the loss I had put her through again and again. There was the Pack whose connection to their wolves had to have been touch and go the whole time I was out, and while I didn't know half of them nearly as well as I wished, they were still a family that reached out to me when their hearts were lonely.

There was Alice and Jasper. The protective older brother and his kinky little mate who knew just how to tease me to no end. I would call her sister, but I also wouldn't mind having her screaming my name and I wasn't sure I was into the whole, 'Help me step-sister!' kink.

And that leads me to the four other women who had essentially invited me into their hearts and relationships. After seeing their souls bared, their hearts open to one another, after witnessing their absolution, I was willing to admit that I was just as in love with them as they were their mates. That was still something weird that we would eventually have to sit down and talk through but for now, I could feel them all once again firmly rooted in my heart where they belonged and I was never letting go again.

Esme's hand left my neck only to wrap her arms around me in a hug so tight I had to counter it with magick just to keep from breaking bones. "I love you, mother," I whispered into her hair, my own tears falling once again into her caramel locks. She simply squeezed me tighter as she helped me back onto the bed before sitting back into her chair.

"I know I've said it a lot already, but let me say it again. I'm sorry. Not just for the pain I've caused you all, but for forgetting that it's not just my life that's at stake anymore. Just as I hold the hearts and souls of all of my Clan within me, you all hold pieces of me as well. I don't think I would be here if you stubborn asses hadn't pooled your resources and beat my dumbass soul back into my body."

"Angela!" I couldn't help but grin at Esme's irate tone, or the booming laugh from elsewhere in the house.

Speaking of the brute. "Hey, King of the Yeet," I yelled for Emmett, "get your ass in here and give me a reason I shouldn't throw you all the way to Canada!"

Emmett appeared in the doorway, a sheepish grin on his boyishly handsome face. "Not gonna lie, that sounds like hella fun." I flicked a concentrated burst of wind just strong enough to thump him in the chest and bounce him off the doorway. "Got it, got it, jeez. Sorry about sneaking up on you," he turned to Rosalie and gave a genuine smile, "and for running away. With everything going on, I just couldn't deal. I thought the whole family was falling to pieces around me, but instead I came back to find it stronger than ever."

"That's all thanks to this useless lesbian over here," Rosalie flicked her thumb my way, that dangerous smirk of hers in place. "Not that Esme's not ecstatic that you're home, but what brought you back again so soon?"

"Well, you see," he chuckled awkwardly as he scratched the back of his head, "There's really two reasons I came back. Firstly," he stepped aside, and in walked a boy who looked far more like a man than the last time I'd seen him in Leah's memories. "It seems we have something in common, Rosalie. We're both bisexual!"

A vicious growl from the wolf to my immediate right had my energy lashing out and pinning her in place as she attempted to rise. Unfortunately, it didn't keep her mouth shut as she snarled at her brother. "You disappear for a goddamn month and show up with my imprint's fucking ex-husband?!"

Emmett cleared his throat, inserting himself into the middle of what was about to become a smackdown of epic proportions if I didn't have a tight hold on Leah at the moment. "Actually, that's reason number two," he presented a packet of papers to Rosalie who just looked between him and the large manila envelope. Impatient as ever, the man-child tossed the package to Rosalie, who snatched it out of the air.

When she pulled out the enclosed papers, I swear I saw her face pale even moreso, if that was even possible. "Leah, honey," she started, putting on her prettiest, most charming smile as she turned to face her mate. "Now, don't get mad. Things kind of got out of hand and I might have forgotten a few details in the chaos of the last few weeks."

I released Leah from my hold, the trickster in me burning with too much curiosity to hold the wolf back from whatever was in those papers. When Leah snatched the paperwork and perused it briefly, I knew Rosalie had fucked up when I felt the wolf and woman settle into a deathly stillness.

"Rose, dear," she called out calmly, a storm brewing in her dark eyes.

Rosalie swallowed back venom loudly, a slight tremble in her voice as she addressed her mate. "Y-Yes, dear?"

Leah calmly laid the papers in her lap, casually flattening them in a smooth, gentle motion before turning her stormy eyes on her imprint. "When were you going to tell me that you were still MARRIED TO THIS FUCKING MAN?!"

She was shouting by the time she finished speaking, her wolf taking over most of her words as she shook with rage. Rosalie looked to be on the verge of tears as she looked between the papers, Leah's bared teeth, and Emmett's wide-eyed fearful expression. Luckily, she did the only sensible thing and grabbed the papers off Leah's lap, snatching a pen out of the air just as Esme tossed one her way and began signing and initialing all necessary areas. She didn't seem to care what she was promising the man in the split, so long as she finished filling out the divorce papers at record speeds.

I feared for the stability of the papers with how quickly her pen ran across its surfaces, only to find the paperwork being passed across to Armando who swiftly picked up a similar task of filling in the witness and notary areas, even going so far as to produce a stamp with his seal and everything without batting an eye. The moment the last page was finished, the duplicates were separated and divided between the two vampires before Rosalie turned her most charming smile I'd ever seen on the woman.

"I don't know what you're talking about, my most perfect mate and love of my life." She shook the papers through the air for good measure. "According to these papers, I'm a free woman and am not in any way married to any person at all!"

Armando, Esme, and Carlisle all three stood and began making their way out of the room, Armando snatching up Emmett's copies of his paperwork as he left with a quick, "I'll file these with the county clerk immediately and ensure this gets expedited before someone loses a vital body part in the interim."

I turned back from the fleeing triad mates to see Rosalie-fucking-Hale using puppy-dog eyes on her wolf mate. She was simpering, her eyes were wide and this puffy little pout on her lips as she gazed longingly into her mate's stormy eyes. This would be the perfect time for Ali-

A flash went off and I couldn't help but laugh as Alice disappeared out of the nearby window, cackling as Rosalie growled after her. She, however, chose life rather than dignity in this instance, and remained by her mate's side as she continued attempting to save her future sex life. Cause let's face it, the only thing on the line right now is how long Leah would make Rosalie suffer by withholding sex from her because the dumbass blonde forgot she was actually married to the man-child.

Leah seemed to seriously consider her imprint, a narrow-eyed gaze holding the vampire hostage as she simply tapped her fingers on her thigh. When she eventually smiled, Rosalie and I both knew that the blonde was off the hook. "Considering all that happened that day, I think you can be forgiven a small lapse in memory. Besides," she went on, a lecherous grin taking over her smile, "the full eight hours of sex that night makes you forgetting you were ever married, kind of a compliment."

Rosalie was biting her lower lip as she glanced down at her mate's lips, perhaps remembering that night-nope, she was definitely remembering that night and I really did not need to know what Leah tasted like just yet, thank you very much! I shut down that connection as I watched Leah turn her fury onto the man-child in the room. Suddenly, Emmett Cullen forgot that he was probably the strongest vampire in the room when faced with a sister's wrath.

"You, on the other hand, have a LOT of explaining to do, Emmett Cullen!"